Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) and Noah Schnapp (Will) in 'Stranger Things,' Season 4 Source: Courtesy of Netflix

Watch: Will 'Stranger Things' Character Come Out in Final Season?

Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 3 MIN.

Fan speculation is growing that the character Will, played by Noah Schnapp, will come out as gay during the hit series' final season. A producer's latest comments are sure to fuel the fire.

Executive Producer Shawn Levy told Entertainment Weekly that fans following the "breadcrumbs" about Will that the show has dropped over the years are liable to find the trail leads someplace definite – though Levy declined to specify what that might be.

"Without getting into where we go later in Season 4," Levy said, referring to the streamer's plan to break the final season into two parts, "I guess I'll just say that there aren't many accidents on 'Stranger Things.'"

Levy assured the publication that "There is clear intention and strategy and real thought given to each and every character."

Entertainment Weekly did plenty of its own thinking on the subject, retracing a number of clues and hints pointing to the conclusion that Will is a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

As EDGE reported when the new season's first trailer dropped last November, that trailer showed Will working on a school project about Alan Turing, the British mathematician whose genius broke the Nazi's Enigma code and helped win World War II. Turing was gay, and his contributions to the war effort did not save him from a penalty of chemical castration – a punishment for his innate nature that eventually pushed him to suicide.

Other moments in the show have suggested to fans that not only is WIll gay, but he's crushing hard on his friend Mike, played by Finn Wolfhard. EW referenced a scene in one episode of the new season in which Will frets to Mike about the prospect of talking about deeper feelings with friends, asking Mike, "what if they don't like the truth?"

In another scene, Will empathizes with another character, Eleven, who's getting bullied at school.

But what really pinged fans' gaydar was a moment in Season 3, when, during an argument between Mike and Will, Mike said: "It's not my fault that you don't like girls."

Levy has previously suggested that this line isn't about any specific kind of sexuality, but rather differing levels of sexual maturity between the characters. Schnapp himself has adopted a similarly broad approach when addressing questions about his character's orientation, saying that the show is "about a bunch of kids who are outsiders and find each other because they have been bullied in some way or are different."

In other comments made to Variety, Schnapp seemed to align his comments with those offered by Levy, saying, "I think that's the beauty of it, that it's just up to the audience's interpretation, if it's Will kind of just refusing to grow up and growing up slower than his friends, or if he is really gay."

Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, questioned the need for such specifics in any case, UK newspaper the Independent reported, saying, "Can I just say, it's 2022 and we don't have to label things."

"I think what's really nice about Will's character is that he's just a human being going through his own personal demons and issues. So many kids out there don't know, and that's OK. That's OK to not know. And that's OK not to label things."

Schnapp pushed back a bit as well, saying, "I find that people do reach to put a label on him and just want to know, so badly, like, 'Oh, and this is it.'"

His comments are reminiscent of what Kit Connor, who stars in another Netflix series – the British gay romance dramedy "Heartstopper" – had to say about people commenting online about his own sexuality. Connor, who plays a bisexual teen named Nick on "Heartstopper," took to Twitter to post, "apparently some people on here know my sexuality better than I do..."

Several "Stranger Things" cast members seemed to be teasing the issue of Will's "is he or isn't he" status in a post on Instagram, EW noted.

A little more than four minutes into the nearly seven-minute clip, cast member David Harbour says, "If you've been watching the show you should know that Will is not interested in El[even]. He's interested in someone else in the group."

Interjects Wolfhard: "Yeah, you'll see soon. He's interested..."

As Wolfhard allows that sentence to trail off, Harbour jumps in with: "He's very interested."

"Stranger Things" Season 4 is on Netflix now, with the season's second part scheduled to drop July 1.


by Kilian Melloy , EDGE Staff Reporter

Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.

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